Hey, Sorry I have been so silent for so long... life has been CRAZY! I have not been in the writing mood in a very loooooong time, and that is not normal for me. You see, last year we adopted a 5 1/2 year old boy, and soon after settling in with him and getting past all the transitional crazy that went with that, the Lord led us to get pregnant again. So last Dec, right after Christmas I found myself with child. The news came one beautiful morning, and then later that night I got a call that my Dad had been rushed to the hospital... a few days later he died. So dealing with his death, still adjusting to the new son, and being pregnant made for an interesting year. But all is well, and of course we are loving life no matter how hard it is at times. Our sweet little girl was born Aug 31, and is such a bundle of joy to each and every one of us. The transition to 5 kids was not as easy as I was hoping. She is a great baby, but juggling an infant with my already full life with all we got going on, wiped me out. We are finally figuring things out; a new normal is making its way into our life.
Anyway, I wanted to share something here that I have been doing recently. Really I don't know why I have not been doing something this structured sooner, because I have known about this parenting wisdom for some time now and heard it a few times in different places. I guess maybe I didn't like the appointment type approach it seemed to have. But, one of my kids is in counseling and it was recently brought back to my attention; so I decided to give it a try. I did not want to just do it without telling the kids what I was doing. And I want them to be able to help me remember and hold me accountable to doing this. I also like to try to make things sound fun or cool for the kids and wanted to make it easy for them to remember. So, like my "hang time" I have mentioned before where each month 1 kid gets a day where we have special time together out of the house, now we have "take five". This is 5 min a day, that each child gets to have with mommy all to themselves. Of course it can go over that 5 min if able or allowed, but the idea is for the kid to get 5 min to do whatever they want to do with mom. They get to choose and as long as it is something they are allowed to do, we do it. I am not allowed to give commands, or say anything negative, or ask any questions... we have fun playing whatever that kid wants to play. I enter into their world, just like I was a kid too. The kids really like this idea. My son, who is an extreme E personality, will always come and say "take five" to me constantly. So whenever I am not busy with something that needs attention at that moment, we are not doing school, the baby is okay without me, etc... they are allowed to come say "take five". They can only have one a day, unless all the kids have had theirs and there is somehow a lot of spare time in my day still and I am able to do more. This is still new, but I look fwd to seeing how it goes and what things come of it. I hope it helps grow our relationships better and love each other better.
DO any of you do something like this as well? If so, does it work? What do you do differently? Do you find it hard to have child-led play time? Do you find yourself turning 5 min into an hour? Would love to hear input.
Go enjoy your kids,
Chrissy
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